Your hand grips the barre as you lift elegantly into the attitude, power in your form. Ballet bends the body, stretching it to its most painful limits until you are light as a feather and malleable as clay. Luckily you are, thanks to years of dedication that have carved your body to perfection, every muscle and divot sharp like a dagger thanks to hours of conditioning, of forcing your body to defy gravity, to do feats that should be impossible. Not only has ballet carved your body—it has carved your mind. Not only is your ambition cutthroat like a silver blade, but you have raw talent: talent you were born with, a natural, god-given talent that got you into the Académie Etienne in Paris (one of the most prestigious ballet academies in the world), and a talent that makes every other dancer in the studio eye your near flawless attitude with envy that reeks from their poised legs and pointed chins. Everyone except your teacher, who gazes upon you with cold indifference as he approaches like a predator stalking its prey.

His strong yet slender hands wrap around your slim waist as he speaks in an icy sharp tone, an inflection in his voice like a freezing knife: “Center your strength in your core.” You do as such, your muscles tightening as his left hand slides down beneath your stomach and as his right slides down your leg in an identical light caress, his slender fingers wrapping beneath your thigh. “Now lift though your leg and extend.” You lift and straighten as he sizes up his new version of you with the same cold gaze as before. “That’ll do,” he says coldly as he walks away. “At rest. Auditions for Swan Lake tomorrow at three, promptly. Tardiness or truancy will not be excused.”

As class ends you pack your things, a small smile on your face as you head out. Auditions were tomorrow—exciting. And you had a feeling that your teacher didn’t even say things as benign as “that’ll do” very often.